White House to release infrastructure principles on Monday

President Donald Trump waves as he leaves the White House in Washington, Friday, Feb. 2, 2018, en route to the Customs and Border Protection National Targeting Center in Sterling, Va. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is expected to release Monday his $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan, a top administration priority in 2018 that will rely heavily on state and local governments, as well as private investors.

A White House official said the administration's plan would include principles for generating private and public investment, cutting the regulatory process from 10 years to two years and outlining funding for projects in rural America. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to speak publicly ahead of an official announcement.

The Trump administration wants to generate $1 trillion in infrastructure spending over the next decade. But only $200 billion would be federal dollars.

The president, in remarks last week to Republican lawmakers at a West Virginia retreat, emphasized efforts to "streamline the horrible approval process — roadways that take 12, 13, 14 years to get approved."

"We used to build them in three months, and now it takes years and years of approvals. We're going to bring that down, ideally, to one year. Two years is our goal, but one year is our real goal," Trump said.

Yet the plan is expected to rely heavily on state and local governments and private investors to come up with most of the rest of the money, a shift of financial responsibility from past plans.

The federal government typically provides 80 percent of the funding for capital expenditures on highways, with state and local governments coming up with the rest. On transit projects, the federal share typically ranges from 50 percent to 80 percent.

But a six-page unofficial summary of Trump's plan, which was widely distributed last month, indicated that Trump is envisioning more of a reliance upon private funding sources. Half his proposed federal money would go toward competitive grants for a broad range of infrastructure projects but the federal grants would cover no more than 20 percent of project costs.

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